Category Archives: Technical

The getting ready moment is an essential and lively event you don’t want to miss. It’s an opportunity to relax, have a drink, and hangout with some of your dearest friends. Located in a beautiful home in south city St Louis, Joanna and her best friends gathered for a pleasant morning on the day of the wedding.

You don’t want this part of the day to be cut or rushed. It’s about you and you should enjoy it.

Foods Photography St Louis

I love photographing foods of anything. There are so many creative options but I especially love shallow depth of field.

Shallow depth of field :

allows parts of the image to have a lovely blurry feel. This allows the focus to fall on the part of the image you want the eyes to stay on. Shallow depth of field can only be achieved with high quality lenses that can shoot at 2.8 or larger. Cheaper lenses cannot go beyond 3.2 at best and then the images are soft. Most mid priced lenses are sharp at 4 or 5.6f.

The beauty of a L series Canon lens or Nikon V series lenses is that they stay sharp even at f1.2. You pay a premium – $2500 vs $800- for the ability to photograph in any number os conditions.

Getting into the dress is a ritual and it is the threshold moment of the day- it is the moment when everyone knows it’s game on. Or in the words of a brides maid at a recent wedding- ” The s***ts about to get real” to which everyone bust into hysterical laughter.

Things I do to document the moment is to control the event.

For example, I ask the groom to put the jacket on in a certain spot- natural light and clean background. Never have them look at the camera- always out the window. Ask them to play with their cuffs or lapels. They need to look cool and James Bondish.

For the Bride there are many options and I try to get a sense of the flow of the dress and the people around them. One of my favorites is the mother applying the final touches of the dress. This is a timeless ritual and it shows a link to the past

I photograph it at the mothers level, Never from above because it looks poor, and always with a backlight behind her. It creates a nice glow around the mother.

Don’t let them get run over- never take a chance in traffic. Drivers will be distracted and your liability insurance wont even come close to saving your butt.

Use your 2nd shooter to the eyes while you shoot. They can let you know if your about to get hit.

Don’t over pose and stage. you have at this stage of the day takes loads of their pictures. This is a capstone of the day and it should be a cool shot. Your couple wants to party so stop wasting their time.

Scout the spot before you tear them away from the party inside. Sunset happens so fast so make sure you have the timing right.

Don’t pose them- yup – I wrote it twice. They are buzzing with all sorts of emotions- so let them play! just snap away at the right exposure.

On this shot I just told them to twirl and dance and he then lifted her. Nothing else is staged. I love how she kicked her heels up- I wish I can say I told her to do that, but she just did and made the shot.